


Lifeline

by fightforyourwrite



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Diamond & Pearl & Platinum | Pokemon Diamond Pearl Platinum Versions
Genre: Distortion World, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Mental Breakdown, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shinoh-chihou | Sinnoh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:59:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7116727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Personally, Dawn finds it frustrating that she keeps going back to a place that she left behind over a year ago. But yet, every attack hits her like it had all happened just yesterday. Why does it have to hurt her so much? </p><p>Lucas and Dawn. Fortuneshipping. Late-night situations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifeline

Dawn pleads for salvation between her cries of terror. She begs for an escape to the nightmare behind her eyes.  

The way she yells _"No!"_ and _"Please!"_ and _"Let me out!"_ repeats their way throughout the halls of her villa, resonating into every crack and every corner.  

The inside of her throat stings with pain as every scream leaves her body. She feels an awful energy pulsing through her hands; they are balled into tight fists that thrash and slam on her bed repeatedly, no signs of stopping.  

Even when she wakes, when she feels a tap on her shoulder that brings her back into her reality, Dawn is still in that world given to her by her dreams. She opens her eyes and glances at the person trying to reach out to her, but she looks at him in a way that she never has.  

She looks at him as if she had never loved him a day in her life. She lunges at him like all her affection and devotion for him has left. 

It all moves so fast. One second ago, she's thrashing and crying in a nightmare, but then, she is charging herself towards the person. She reaches out to wrap her hands around her neck, squeezing as tightly as she possibly can.  

He lets out a cry in pain as Dawn pins him to the bed. But her grip, while strong, is not strong enough to halt his speech. Even when she has got him strangled, he manages to let out a few raspy words.  

"Dawn... Dawn, listen to me... it's me, Lucas... you're having a flashback... you're not there anymore... it feels like you are... but you're not."  

His words enter her mind as the catalytic element in all of her internal chaos. Dawn blinks and looks around the room. When she sees her bedroom's royal blue walls and her mahogany dresser in the corner and Lucas's glasses sitting atop his favourite book on her nightstand, the realization flows back into her mind.  

Her head starts to hurt, emotions and sensations rushing back into her mind. Dawn then glances down at her hands wrapped around Lucas's neck and recoils in an instant. She lets go and stumbles away from him as if she had burned him. Now at the foot of the bed, Dawn's breathing goes rapid. Her chest expands and deflates at a fast pace, her lungs start to hurt as she grasps for air.  

Lucas's breaths are slower. He's gasping too, but his are more calm, more relieved. He sits himself up on the mattress and looks forward to Dawn. She has her knees up to her chest and her eyes are slammed shut. Her hands pressed onto her ears as if she's attempting to crush her head and her voice repeats the same mantra over and over.  

"It's all a dream... It's all a dream... It's all a dream... It's all a dream... It's all a dream..."  

She's calming down, Lucas can see it. Her breaths were fast, but it's obvious that she's making a deliberate effort to slow them down. She places her breaths between her words.  

Now released, Lucas's throat and neck feel sore, but he ignores it. There's something else he has to focus on now. He steps off of their shared bed and grabs his horn-rimmed spectacles off his copy of _Behind The Lake Trio_ to place them on his face.  

After putting on a sweater, Lucas heads out of the bedroom and goes to the kitchen. He assembles a glass of water as fast as he can and comes back into the bedroom as soon as possible. When he returns, Dawn's breathing is slower, but she still has her hands over her ears. Her eyes are open now, partially welled with tears.  

They stay like this for a while; Lucas at the door, glass of water in hand, Dawn at the foot of the bed, looking as if she's meaning to force a fracture into her own skull. 

But it doesn't last forever, they're both well-versed enough in her condition to know that every panic attack she has will eventually come to an end.  

Minutes pass and then it's over.  

Dawn takes her hands off her head and crosses them in front of her chest. She glances over at Lucas and focuses on him. His worrisome eyes haven't taken themselves off of her.  

There's a pregnant silence between the two, there always is in the aftermath of her flashbacks. Personally, Dawn finds it frustrating that she keeps going back to a place that she left behind over a year ago. But yet, every attack hits her like it had all happened just yesterday. Why does it have to hurt her so much? 

She thinks her flashbacks are worse than her tendency to stare off blankly into seemingly nothing, for almost hours at a time, or her habit of laughing during inappropriate moments.  

It's a difficult thing for her to handle sometimes. There are moments in her life where she's convinced that she has it under control, but then there are others where she feels like she's lost any sort of command over her body and mind.  

It leads to longer consequences, like bruises on her knuckles from punching a wall, a physical soreness in her head from squeezing it too hard, or in this case, Lucas's hurt throat.  

She looks at him as apologetically as humanly possible. She's sorry, she's so so sorry that she did this to him. She's ashamed at herself for even letting it happen.  

But yet, it's Lucas who speaks first, breaking their tight silence.  

"Nightmare?" His voice comes out as a croak. 

Dawn nods her head, "Yes."  

Lucas steps forward and hands Dawn the glass of water. She accepts it wordlessly. As she takes a pull, Lucas stays standing in front of her.  

"It was that place again, right?" Lucas theorizes. "Or was it... it?"  

He doesn't say the name, he doesn't want to. Lucas's isn't sure what will happen to Dawn if he says the name of the hell she had been forced to venture through or the name of the devil that ruled it. He doesn't want to see what happens if he does.  

"A little bit of both," Dawn answers. She puts the glass of water over on the nightstand.  

Lucas nods his head. He walks over and sits on the bed, but as he settles himself down on the mattress, Dawn makes sure to keep a certain amount of distance between them. They're close still, but yet so far.  

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Lucas asks.  

"Not this time," Dawn says, shaking her head.  

"Okay," Lucas agrees. He knows better than to force Dawn to do anything.  

When she doesn't want to talk, there's not much else Lucas can do but wait until she says something else. There are times where she wants to go back to sleep, and there are others where she leaves her villa and takes a walk. He's not sure what she wants to do now.  

She has her eyes focused down on her hands, looking at them like they are the most vile, disgusting things on earth. She looks at them in shame, horrified at what she had just done with them.  

"I'm sorry, Lucas," Dawn says to him. She moves her head up so her eyes can meet his, stormy grey meeting cobalt blue. "I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. It just..." It gets hard for her to speak, "… it felt so real this time. I felt like I was back there again. I couldn't trust anything. I didn't know what to do."  

"Apology accepted," Lucas tells her. "I know you can't control it sometimes." His eyes tell her that his words are genuine, but part of Dawn doesn't believe him.  

She knows that practically assaulting a loved one will never be okay. It's a horrible thing to do.  

This is why people call her _'The_ _Mad Champion of Sinnoh,'_ it's all because of shit like this.  

It's why people call her _'Crazy'_ or _'Loony_ _'_ and place those words beside her face when they plaster it up on a screen. They know her as the girl who stepped into a world of distortion but couldn't come out the same, and make it seem like it's her fault that this all happened to her.  

It makes Dawn feel dangerous, like a monster who will never do anything but hurt anyone who comes close to her.  

Lucas is so patient and understanding of her condition that it's too good to be true. He waits for her when she stares off into the distance, he talks with her when the nightmares don't stop, and he's there for her when she feels herself detaching from reality, ready to be the lifeline she will grab onto when she wants to come back.  

He is her beacon in a way, because Dawn looks at him during even the scariest of nights and it's just like she's home.  

It's all too good to be true. Nothing can last forever.  

"I love you," Lucas speaks up, after a pull of silence plays out between the two of them. It's not a proclamation, it's assurance.  

"I love you too," Dawn says back to him.  

With their words said, Lucas looks down at her feet. He sees the space she's putting between him and her. Normally, they're so close, inseparable, bonded, connected. But now, he can see her wanting to stay away from him.  

Thinking cautiously and wanting what's best for her, Lucas gets out of the bed and onto his feet. "If you need some space, I'll sleep on the couch tonight." He grabs a pillow off the bed. "It's okay. I've done it before."  

Lucas walks over to the closet and pulls out an extra blanket. But the second he gets to the doorway, he hears Dawn callout.  

"Stay with me?" 

He stops in his tracks and turns around. The look on her face seems confused, but yet, frightened. She doesn't want to be alone.  

"Please?" she adds on. Her voice sounds feeble, but desperate.  

Lucas takes a moment to think, letting all of the information sink in.  

Dawn thinks that he'll refuse and sleep on the couch for the night, but then he starts making his way back into her bedroom and closes the door with his foot.  

"Okay."  

He puts the blanket and pillow back where they came from. He removes his glasses and places them back on the nightstand. Dawn settles back into where she was laying down before as Lucas climbs into the bed.  

Basked in the darkness, she can make out Lucas trying to get comfortable once more. He gets under the sheets with her, his feet grazing hers blindly.  

With an assuring embrace, Lucas wraps his arms around Dawn as they lay down. The blankets drape over them with a calming warmth. Lucas presses kisses to her eyelids, then some to her forehead as they settle into each other. 

Dawn has her head laying on his chest, listening to his heartbeat as if it were a lullaby. His hand runs through her hair, slowly and firmly trying to keep her calm with every stroke. 

As he holds her, Lucas whispers words into her ears. He's beyond telling her that things are going to be okay. She doesn't know that for sure and neither does he. So instead, Lucas tells assuring words that he knows to be true.  

 _"I'm here... I'm here... I'm here... I'm here..."_  

He repeats it like a mantra. 

She doesn't fall asleep as quickly as he does. He's still holding her, even after he dozes off, but Dawn stays awake even long after that. She focuses on her breathing and the sound of Lucas's heartbeat. It keeps her grounded, connecting her back to the reality that she's afraid to fall out of again. 

The world around her remains silent as the night carries on. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have always to write about Dawn sustaining PTSD after her trip into the Distortion World. I never got to it, but now that I have, I will say that this process was very emotionally draining for me. I myself suffer from panic attacks and I medicate for my anxiety and depression. I might have put a lot of what I go through from my own experiences being mentally ill and going through panic attacks, and in doing so, it really took a lot out of me. 
> 
> I also did a lot of research about PTSD to write this, especially going into how to help a loved one with PTSD so I could write how Lucas treats Dawn respectfully. I see him as a very patient and understanding guy, so he really tries to help her in her condition. 
> 
> This is a character piece I've always wanted to write, so I would really like some proper feedback about it. 
> 
> That aside, I hope that what I wrote was respectful to those going through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. If it was not, then tell me what I did wrong and I promise to do better next time. 
> 
> \- Sandri


End file.
